The great witch hunt of Szeged (1728–1729) is the most extensive series of prosecutions against witches in Hungary, conducted in a short period of time. It undoubtedly plays a prominent role in the literary tradition, as its sources, availability and reputation attracted the attention of the public very early on. The size of the trials (with at least 25 proceedings against individuals, 15 death sentences, and hundreds of participants in the proceedings), the demonological elements in the trial documents (e.g. the well-documented use of foreign legal sources, the emergence of the diabolic witchcraft belief, etc.) and the political context (e.g. the investigation of the Hungarian Chancellery in Vienna, and political struggles between the city factions) are very different from other contemporary cases. It is peculiar that the case has had a wide international reception (e.g. in newspaper articles, travelogues, and academic treatises).
The dissertation consists of a theoretical part and a practical part on the microhistory of the sequences of the trials. The first part is divided into three thematic units: the history and theory of source publication, Hungarian and international historiography, and research methodology and conceptual issues. The second part follows a roughly chronological division: it can thus be divided into a discussion of the judicial history, the period of intense persecution, and the consequences of the persecution and its repercussions.
In my dissertation, I set out to achieve several different, yet interlinked, goals. A part of this stems from a reinterpretation of the source context and a part from new methodological approaches. On the one hand, I publish and discuss the court sources of the entire period of the Szeged witch hunts, in a critical edition, aiming at completeness. I do this by presenting the methodological options that are necessary for their interpretation. In addition, I review the problems that have arisen so far in publishing the texts, and how these can be solved.